WARNING: LONG POST AHEAD

It's been so long since I've posted that I don't really expect anybody to still be checking our blog, but if you have been faithfully checking for updates your payday has finally arrived. The following two pictures pretty much sum up the past 12 weeks of Bentley's life:

He has had so many ups and downs and mostly all of them have been related to eating. We've been through the ringer trying to figure out all of his feeding issues and unfortunately we've been putting him through a lot of trial and error to sort everything out. This translates into having a happy baby for a couple of days and then an "I don't feel good" baby for a couple of weeks. Hence, the reason I haven't found/made the time to blog. I've been too busy researching things and trying to help my baby feel better.

Around his 3 week mark he started screaming bloody murder everytime that I would go to feed him which led to many tears for the both of us. After refusing to eat for a couple of days, we finally figured out that he had acid reflux and started him on medicine at four weeks. That temporarily helped until he decided that he couldn't tolerate the taste of the medicine any longer and spit it out everytime we gave it to him. This led to another week of screaming (with a very hoarse voice from all of the acid going up his esophagus) until we were able to get our insurance to approve him for a different and much sweeter, strawberry flavored medicine...you better believe I tasted it. He took to it wonderfully and we were in the clear for about two weeks until he slowly started refusing to eat, AGAIN!! My emotional state by this point was completely frazzled. I don't know about other women, but I've been way more emotional since having Bentley than I ever was while pregnant.

After a few more days of not eating, we started piecing together all of his symptoms only to discover that he has a milk protein allergy. Even after going on a dairy free diet he still broke out into a rash and would curl up in pain after eating my milk. Conclusion = no more nursing. He has since been on four different hypoallergenic formulas and we finally think (crossing fingers) that we've found the one that works best for him. After switching to the latest formula this weekend, we've cut our feeding times down from an average of one hour to 15-30 minutes. This has drastically improved everyone's mood at home.

Bentley has tried so hard to be a happy baby through all of this and I just feel so bad that it has taken us so long to get things straightened out. I'm still not sure that we've taken care of everything, but things have definitely improved. Bentley is returning to his normal happy self and he is getting a lot more sleep now that he is feeling better. I only have to get up once to feed him at night which I think is pretty stellar.

Sorry for the long rant, but I really feel like I have been completely consumed with all of his health issues these past couple of months. Since having him, I am just now starting to feel like a normal person again. I even shower and get dressed most days now! John is greatful for this change. Despite going through these issues, we have still managed to have a lot of fun with Bentley. He is just so flippin' cute and we can't seem to stop taking pictures of him. We love him so much. John and I often catch each other sneaking into his room at night just to stare at him sleeping so peacefully. He is definitely very loved!! Here's to hoping that we have many more months of this: